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lucio menegon | music•noise•art

Influx

Flux53 showPerformed a solo set at the Flux 53 venue in Oakland this past Saturday evening as a result of Rent Romus graciously sneaking me onto the Edgetone Records Mudwagon CD release show – even though I do not appear on that fine slab of plastic. I followed a very good set by Jay Korber (of Ettrick) with a short blast of solo guitar hystrionics.

Here’s a little something:

      1. Flux-o-rama


Wandering around the space, I stumbled upon a group chores breakdown matrix posted on the wall. This entry was from a gig @ Flux with Prehistoric Horse on this past July at the start of our US Tour. I can report that most of the applicable chores were done, including the cleaning of the bathroom. Thank you nice people of Flux 53.
Venue chores from a gig

Venue chores from a gig

Prehistoric Horse Tour Wrap

Prehistoric Horse plays a very intense and dynamic form of improvisational music that sometimes borders on sheer noise but also incorporates the dramatic and absurd. Our sets morphed with the miles logged and the tenor and pacing changed dramatically from the first chaotic show in Albany CA to the final mellow moments in NYC. There were many good shows on our 13 gig cross-country run with Oakland, Seattle, Minneapolis and New York being particular highlights.

Since my last post in Madison, we played Louisville, KY (where I managed to leave the power supply to my laptop – thanks to Mateo for mailing it back), Pittsburgh, Toronto, Baltimore and NYC. The lack of laptop partially explains the drop off in the tour blog, but in truth, the last few shows were difficult, involved much driving and were not necessarily inspired. The NYC show was the exception, so I will wrap up a brief description of it.

The gig was in hipster Williamsburg at a place called Monkeytown, a space that boasts four walls of projected imagery, with musicians in the middle and comfy low-rise couches behind spartan japanese style tables on the perimeter. In response to said surroundings and perhaps inspired by a terrific quartet improvisation featuring cellist Okkyung Lee, we upped our game (New York does that to you) and performed a rather ‘cinematic’ set, quite different from others we have done before. David used a stripped down percussion setup and the overall tone was much less frenetic, with more melody and ‘playing’ from Valerie and I. The audience seemed to appreciate it and despite some of the usual second guessing, this feeling was verified a few days later when a gent stopped me in the street to favorably comment on the performance 🙂

Below are some links to videos, pics and audio. Plans are afoot for more shows/tours in the next year. Enjoy.

Here is a particularly interesting section of improv from Toronto, Canada. A gig with the dubious distinction of having ‘not a soul in attendance.’

photo slideshow
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more to come…

Nottingham, heavily

July 22
Nottingham Coop, Madison, WI
Picture this: A gorgeous Italianate castle/villa perched on a large lake in the midst of sprawling modern university buildings. Expansive rooms filled with random couches and chairs in various states of decay, desks, nooks and crannies, filled with books, filth or notes, messages, threats and/or suggestions to other members of the cooperative. A large kitchen, a filthy bathroom with door graffiti expounding on the subject of eggs.

As we are a trio self contained, no PA needed, thank you, we decided to set up amongst this predetermined chaos, near the large stone fireplace in the main room. A room that felt heavy, restricted. One that had seen many things – like the accumulated energy of all the parties and shows that had gone on before (even Husker Du played here back in the day). We were happy to have this gig as all things coop apparently must be voted on and Jeremy, the gent who set up the show managed the politics in order to make this happen. Thanks Jeremy.

A very nice opening solo set was performed by Chris (part of the band following us) and featured some great textures produced on sax and mangled/processed/looped. From where i sat out on the porch, the sound was three dimensional, flying out the windows and ricocheting off surrounding buildings to where i lay staring at the sky. very nice.

We followed with a set destined to echo the agreed upon vibe of the room. Delicate, building, longer tones and pieces, punctuated by our usual dose of mayhem. David’s theater moment included a discussion of waking and having a vagina and wondering about the fate of his penis (and mine). The set was well received and the only disappointment was the failure to record the set – one for the gods as my friend Suki would say.

The Bastard Trio followed up with a great hard edged set of guitar, drums and sax – Jeremy’s guitar volume swells and a great bass/guitar low/hi end juxtaposition against Tim’s furious drumming and sheets of sound from Chris’ sax.

We finished the evening with a group collaboration that was fine and good, but a bit of a drop in creativity and energy and eventually evolving into several loud drumming duets between Tim and David. And then everyone sort of evaporated and the place was ours.

Prehistoric Horse

Prehistoric Horse provokes audiences through spasmodic bursts of snare drum (david grollman), guitar (lucio menegon), cello (valerie kuehne) and occasional unprovoked dramatic outburst. A very intense and dynamic form of improvisational music that sometimes borders on sheer noise and incorporates the absurd. A mashup of Bennink/Nakatani/Frith/Frisell/Bach/Britten/Bi-polar disorder punk rock sounds.
…spasmodic bursts of clatter and skree via cello, drums, and guitar, typically played in ways that would make conventional music teachers shudder in horror.” (Seattle Stranger)

 

discography:

more vids:
Prehistoric Horse YouTube Channel